I regularly unpack that Goya guitar bought back in 1968, pin on my Certified Music Practitioner badge and head down some hallway to offer the ministry of music to critically and chronically ill, elderly and dying patients.
 
This day I enter the hallway at Mountain Valley Hospice House in Upstate New York.
 
My Yamaha and Martin steel stringed guitars remain home most of the time. The Goya's sweet tones complement the hushed, even holy atmosphere of the House. The glinty, outspoken sound of steel strings is too big for frail, often overwhelmed patients in small rooms.
​ 
Len is one such patient.

I noted that Len's door was still closed as it had been every time I came to the Hospice House. I asked about him.
 
The nurses explained he was so medically compromised that he refused to spend any time with a stranger, fearing the embarrassment of having an accident. I inwardly cringed. No wonder this poor man isolated himself.
​ 
Something made me want to give him music. But I was a stranger.

Later that day, I caught my first glimpse of Len as he sat, door ajar, in his recliner in his room, huddled up under several blankets, watching an old movie on television.
​ 
If I was ever going to offer him music I would need to proceed slowly so I just slowed long enough to wave at him and then moved on to another patient's room.


But I was curious about the television volume. It was turned off.

I could tell my guitar caught Len's eye. He didn't wave back to me or look me in the face, but followed the Goya, turning his head to keep it in his sight as I passed his door.

I learned on my next visit to Hospice House that Len had asked a nurse about me after I left the week earlier.
​ 
He told her he heard the music, turned off his tv volume and cracked the door himself in an effort to better listen to the songs I was singing.

When I saw Len again he was walking at a slow pace in the patient wing of the Hospice House, dragging his oxygen tank behind him.

He was a skeleton of a man. His eyes, his skin, were yellow.
​
I introduced myself and asked if he might like some music later. He hesitated, then finally said, "I like country music. Guitar."

After playing and singing for other patients, I moved on to Len's room.

He sat, waiting for me, wrapped again in a heap of blankets. I noticed that figures of deer and eagles and wolves were woven into the fabric of these warm throws.

The walls of his room were blank and his only other possessions, an ashtray and a pack of open cigarettes, sat on his bedside table.

Remembering Len's words about liking country and guitar and assuming his age was close to mine, I began with an Elvis number, an easy mix of soft and gentle early rock and the homegrown voice of The King.

Love me tender, love me still, all my dreams fulfill, for my darling I love you, and I always will.

He studied my hands playing the guitar.
​
Then he looked far away, out the window of his empty room.

Len stared off, into the open space out his window while I sang through to the end of "Love Me Tender."

When the music stopped we kept the silence together. Then he spoke.
​
"My wife left me. I got a daughter. She gave me them blankets. She's got a baby now but she ain't married. She might come see me."

"Does she like music?"

"I don't know. I ain't been around her 'til I got sick and come here. This is a nice place. They take good care a you."

I felt okay about asking Len a personal question.

"What did you do for a living?"

"Truck driver. You know, them big ones. Cross country, stopover in Reno. Pick up the load, then haul to the City, mostly. I just went where they told me."

I couldn't imagine this tiny man climbing up into the cab of an eighteen wheeler and piloting that monstrosity at high speeds back and forth the asphalt and cement byways of the US.

I could imagine his life on the road, though: cigarettes, booze, probably drugs, caffeine, and fast food.

He was the embodiment of a man wrecked by hard living.

But Len was gentle.
​
And later I learned, very thoughtful and generous.

The next week and the next, there was no question about my entering Len's room.

"How about some Johnny Cash?" I asked.

​"Yeah, I like his music. Specially the guitar 'Folsom Prison.'

On we went through the long winter with those sessions of country music. Twenty minutes was usually enough. I could tell when Len got tired.

Those sad eyes closed and his small head, covered with wisps of slicked back brown hair, eased back into his lounge chair. He'd begin to fall asleep then jerk awake not wanting to offend me.
I knew it was time to leave.

"You play that guitar real good," Len said one day as I began to pack up.

​And as I was halfway out the door he added, "I always wanted to play one."

Len's words about always wanting to play the guitar rang in my ears. I could give him lessons on my own time as a volunteer.

But he had no guitar. And no money to buy one.
​
I had an idea.

On the way home from Hospice, I stopped at Dad's Music Store, a kind of roadside shack, patched up and painted on the outside, very unlike Darby or Alexandria Music Stores, but like them on the inside, a feast of music and instruments crammed into a small space.

Dad's Music Store was owned by a man who resembled Len.

He smoked furiously. He knew me. 

I had bought guitar strings and accessories there, drooled over the Guild guitars in the lighted glass case. 
​
I explained my work at Hospice and told him about Len.

"Could you offer me a good deal on a guitar?" I asked Dad, the owner of the music store.

"One with easy action. Len's really weak, his hands and fingers are small. He'll need all the help the guitar can give him to press the strings down."
​
I paused and looked over at Dad.

Dad eyed his guitars, then looked back at me.
​
"I can do better then that. How 'bout I donate a guitar to Len?"

I was stunned. Dad's Music was no fancy, city music shop. I wondered how Dad even made it up in this rural Adirondack area of New York.
​
A polished, new student-sized guitar with easy action, along with a case, a stand, some oversize picks, and a music book with a CD, were handed over to me on the spot.

I could hardly contain myself over the prospect of giving Len his own instrument along with the promise for lessons.

"I'll make sure you get a letter from Hospice for your donation," I said to Dad. "You can take it off your taxes." Dad seemed uninterested in the offer. 

"And thank you. A lot. Len will be surprised. I'll let you know how it goes." 
​
Dad just smiled.

After I loaded the guitar and all the gear for Len into my car, I called Hospice to relate the great news.

The secretary couldn't believe the good fortune. She put down the phone receiver and I could overhear her excitement as she shared the news with the staff.

"I'll call the local newspaper for photos and a story," she said. "We'll have ice cream and cake. Everyone can come."
​
Even a date was set for the event.
​

As I drove home with the car full of Len's guitar and all its accoutrements, my only regret was that Len wasn't with me at the music store. I imagined that his intrigue with all the instruments, at least the guitars, matched mine.
​
I would have loved seeing Len's expression when Dad removed a guitar from the wall peg and handed it to him.

Then Len became very ill. His door remained closed once again.
​
I prayed and held my breath.